The effect of kinship on the settlement patterns of the southwest Michigan frontier

This dissertation examines the role of kinship in the social organization and settlement evolution of an agricultural frontier society in nineteenth century North America using a case study of twenty townships from southwest Michigan as an example. Agricultural frontiers are often characterized by restricted contact with the homeland. This in turn leads to specific adaptations of the intrusive population designed to counteract isolation and foster social cooperation. The primary organizational focus of kinship in European and Euro-American society is the nuclear family. Due to low population density, frontier society required the rapid creation of a supportive social network to maintain settlement integrity and hence viability. Nuclear families were capable of supplying that minimum demographic imperative.; Kinship's role as a principal element of social organization on agricultural frontiers generally, and in southwest Michigan specifically, is examined. The nuclear family and larger kin-based organizations known as "kinship clusters" that evolved from nuclear families were a specific social adaptation for settlement of agricultural frontiers.; Others have proposed that this adaptation may have affected settlement patterns on the frontier because in many instances frontier settlements were comprised of these spatially bounded "kinship clusters," not individual households. Several researchers have referred to this as a "clustering phenomenon." These "kinship clusters" could also provide a focal point that would attract other settlers to the area. This proposition was tested against the southwest Michigan agricultural frontier data.; Kinship clusters consisted of groups of interrelated individuals, both affinal and consanguineal kin, that traveled to the frontier of southwest Michigan and settled in agricultural communities. These kinship clusters were often, if not always, the first settlers on this frontier. The significance of kinship clusters as an adaptive strategy in agricultural frontier settlement and the resultant settlement pattern that developed was supported with statistical testing.; Nearest neighbor analysis using census and other records and point data from Calhoun County maps from 1831 to 1840 demonstrated a trend in settlement patterning that showed initial clustering followed by random settlement. This analysis revealed that initial kinship clusters acted as a focal point for subsequent settlement and development on the frontier. As the frontier population increased over time, and population infilling occurred, the kinship clusters tended to have a decreasing effect on settlement patterns. By the final phase of settlement at the end of the pioneer period, and with the coming of the railroads ca. 1840, analysis revealed that settlement patterning was evenly spaced, tending toward a regular pattern, implying that kinship no longer had an effect on the spatial structuring of the settlement pattern.; In sum, this research confirms the importance of kinship in the spatial structuring of initial settlement on the frontier primarily as a vehicle for establishment of spatially constrained cooperative and integrative social networks. As population increases, the importance of spatially discrete kinship clusters diminishes as a magnet for additional settlement. This recognition has important implications for understanding the evolution of settlement systems and patterns on the agricultural frontier.